Are they starting to Listen?

Anyone who knows me, knows I research Computer Science Education. One of the most frustrating things I find from working in the area is that sometimes great stuff will be ignored. People sometimes forget that their is top quality research done on many of the coffee room problems. They always think that their anecdotal chit chat holds as much weight as the proper science in the area. Only people who research the area can answer the following questions effectively...

What is a good first language, does it matter?
How should we go about re-desiging a course?
Whats the best way to teach OO Programming?

Its the last one I want to talk here. Whilst most universities are stuck in the objects last pedagogy (Programming Courses that begin with hello world, and end with classes), there is a wealth of literature that would suggest Objects Early or Objects First is better way to do things. Most academic types who don't focus on teaching tend to dismiss such new pedagogies as "hype" or "fads". They are just unwilling to learn.

Microsoft, who receieved a mild earful in my last post, are obviously listening to someone however. BlueJ is the tool to accompany objects early/objects first pedagogies and whilst few would doubt its success, people often ask how do students move from BlueJ to real world IDEs (Eclipse, VS2005 etc). People have talked about how BlueJ could have different versions depending on programmer skill, people have suggested plugins for Eclipse. I don't think anyone thought that Microsoft would go ahead and include one of BlueJs defining features, the Object Bench.

Read Michael Kollings report on how the Object Bench will soon appear in VS 2005.
Maybe this will give BlueJ, and indeed CS-Education Research some much needed airtime.


"Academic types who don't focus on teaching" will receieve a lot of mention on this weblog. Anyone university that isn't dedicated to teaching as well as possible will suffer. I'll probably spell this one out later on.